Dec 2, 2014

merryDIY: clay gingerbread men ornaments

i love a homemade christmas. i'm into the not-quite-perfectly-decorated tree. i like when it's obvious that my children helped make ornaments. we'll have plenty of opportunity this year: instead of the yellow and white christmas of years past, K and i decided to make 2014 the year of the Crafty Colorful Christmas.

...starting with these gingerbread men ornaments.

if you want truly homemade ornaments, you can make salt dough with just a few household ingredients (i made some here if you need a recipe ). however, i happened to have plain white sculpey clay on hand so that's what we used. we rolled it out to about a half-inch thickness then i used a gingerbread man cookie cutter to stamp out a tiny army of them.

i used a straight needle tool to poke holes in the heads so we'd be able to hang them later.

if you don't have one of these, a sewing needle or safety pin works just as well.

i added simple clothing details to a few of them, for some variety.

after baking them at 275ºF for a half hour or so, we let them cool then started painting.

we used plain ol' acrylic craft paint, nothing fancy.

you can hang them on your tree with ornament hooks or a bit of ribbon.

i just love knowing that years from now, i'll pull these out and remember how K and i rolled out the clay, stamped the gingerbread shapes, and hand-painted each one.

they would make really cute gifts from the kids for grandparents or neighbors as well. you don't have to hoard them all. ;)

if you're into a handmade christmas like i am, feel free to browse all of my past merryDIY projects here!